4558. EBB to Isa Blagden
As published in The Brownings’ Correspondence, 27, 108–111.
28. Via del Tritone.
Dec. 30. [1859] [1]
My dearest Isa, “J’ai failli attendre” [2] for your letter––& even a little more– Which does’nt suit my Majesty.
But, dear, I am afraid you are unwell or uncomfortable or both at Casa Guidi, & this vexes me– It must have been very cold at Florence. Still, we never had a difficulty in keeping up the thermometer, there, & I cant help fancying, either that something is wrong in the instrument (& my memory hints that our ther[mo]meter met with an accident) or that you dont heap up the wood in the large manner. In the morning you must make a regular bonfire, & then the room being once warm you can keep it so– The small fires we were satisfied with before we left Florence, would be insufficient in the really cold weather, observe. We burnt quantities of wood—piled it up—set fire to the scudi– I tell you because it’s best that you should be aware of the necessity of the position. The room is so large. Only, extreme cold does not last long,—& certainly you can warm it, at the worst cold in my experience at least.
I am glad we came here. It has been cold, & we had snow one day—but there is a great gap between Florence-cold & this of Rome, & I have felt it here as little as possible. These rooms are extremely warm. I burn no shoes by the fire– On Christmas Day I might have gone out, and the day before yesterday I was out driving. Pray observe that in England it has been colder than for twenty years—very cold too in Paris .. & even in the south of France.
But dearest Isa, write & tell me how you are– Your wise plan would be to come to Rome on the first pause in the cold weather. You would make us all happy if you came, & it would not hurt yourself—no, indeed– Poor Hatty has been ill with abscess in the ear, of a very painful character, and though she is better again, I hear sorrowfully that Miss Cushman remarked an unusual languor in her return to her studio. Also Pantaleoni thinks her constitution weak. You should come & see her & carry her back with you. She is too late & too early in Rome.
You startled me about Wilson– I fear there is a nervous susceptibility deeper than common hysteria. She cant bear looking at any pictures—so never ask her to look at one again. Last winter she could’nt look at Gordigiani[’]s, of me, though there was certainly more of the Grenadier character than of the pathetic in it. And all her illusions come with that physical feeling at the heart– Do talk strongly to her—exhort her to put away these fancies. I did some good last year by being very “stern”. Dearest Isa, she’s a sort of medium, be sure—but, having no proportionate personal & intellectual strength, she drops into … what you & I would call by a dreadful name—only we wont, because it wd be to her great disadvantage. She was infinitely better before we left Florence,—in fact, quite well—but I am afraid she pines after Ferdinando & that this hurts her a little.
No—dont send me another person’s letters– [3] There’s a pain that sickens. Be sure of this, my Isa, that what with one thing & what with another I shall be held up to posterity as not only “stern”, but cruelly capricious, malignant, hard. Whereas the truth, as God sees it, is, that circumstances have been very hard to me.
And it is so, that I who have not really a stern heart, nor memory enough to bear malice, yet do feel “stern” about the visit to Casa Guidi & convulsions of sensibility likely to ensue. While I write, a letter comes. [4] She cant make up her mind to go she says– That was not said to you ..
Dearest, true-hearted Isa, I love you. Oh, truth, truth!—may God keep us true. That is one reason why I like Kate. So much clear water refreshes the thirsty soul– Yes, it was pretty of her too, to remember poor Landor—as it was gracious & kind of you, my Isa, to write to him without thought of his rudeness. Just conceive of his wanting to pull down his stone-staircase! & how else could it be “altered”? He has written to Robert about it. Then he has been pettish about the Galignani, & given up Brecker altogether, depriving himself of books in a pet–
By the way, where does the “Quarante Cinq” occur? In what series? [5]
Penini has been thrown twice off his poney—not hurt: only the effect is that I am very nervous when he goes out, & the child himself by no means confident. Yet the poney has not the least vice—is simply a little over-playful through an excess in diet. Peni is very well, and works hard with his abbé—through whose report of his music, General de Nouë (second in command of the French) begged that the child might be presented to him. So Peni went with his Abbé, who is quite fond of him, as people are apt to be, I must say, with my Peni– I think it will do him good to feel the authority & weight of an exterior hand on some of his lessons. His Italian is very much praised. “Tutta la delicatezza, della lingua Toscana”, [6] says our Abbé– (A dreadful idea strikes me, that I told you that before.) [7]
I wish I could make up for it by telling you certain diplomatical secrets—but there’s an oath on my soul. Only, you may understand how things are going when I tell you that English diplomats here have turned round fairly about the Emperor, & if, as Count Cottrell told you once, only you & I and Kate believed in Napoleon, the case is no longer so– Think of Odo Russell, that keen politician, a Russell besides, with the amount of Anglican opinion which the name conveys, .. coming to me the other day & saying .. “The Emperor is more an Italian than a Frenchman—everything that comes out proves it more & more .. he has done everything to this one end. Whatever has seemed in another sense has been necessitated by the desire to keep in terms with his colleagues, the Kings & Queens of the earth.” Tell Mdme Peruzzi [8] from me that every Italian man & woman must honor himself & herself by giving honor to LN. His difficulties have been & are enormous but the great Head & heart will conquer all. Assure Mr Trollope of this. The pope is in despair, & may well be so. England & France will go together in the Congress. The tone taken by French ambassadors, either here or in Tuscany, simply proves that they know nothing. My heart burns to tell you two or three facts—but Robert who brought them to me hot from under the seal of despatches, made me swear to repeat nothing. Certainly the esoteric doctrine has been held fast by Louis Napoleon—but I suppose, in the face of the obstacles, it was necessary to “surpasser sa finesse ordinaire” [9] & to allow a wholesome state of general calumny to prevail.
I hope the English ministry may hold together till after congress– Then, so sick I am of ‘National Defences’ & Suez, I dont care how soon they drop out of sight. To have certain things said & maintained by liberals is more offensive that [sic, for than] their being said & maintained by the retrograde party. Lord Palmerston’s speech on the Defences & the articles of the Post on Suez—are revolting to me. [10] As to the Times, it simply wants a war between France & England—perhaps with some Orleanist aims ulteriorly. I shall end by inaugurating a “new disease” called the Times cholera or fever.
May God bless you my dearest Isa with every sort of blessing that can hang on Christmas Trees. I have had a rather gloomy Christmas letter from Arabel– We have lost an uncle, [11] which death casts a shade though it does not strike a wound. As Arabel says, “its another link gone”– Then my last sister in law who expects her confinement in May, has lost her mother suddenly [12] .. (found dead in her bed) .. & Arabel has been in the shadow of that grief, poor darling. The letter altogether was sad to me as I sate here & read it. Then Christmases of themselves––I am forced to strain to look at them with my Peni’s eyes.
But those eyes are so bright, & the heart that belongs to them so tender and the child altogether so good, that I do thank God for him, & for the Xmas which he likes.
My dearest Isa, if you are asked whether I “write”, I dont pray you to deny– Only keep me from “fuss” as much as possible by dilating on my sins generally as a bad correspondent .. which I am,—except to you & one or two others. I wish I had never written letters, except to you– I repent of a whole pile of them. I have been very credulous, & very imprudent: only untruthful,—no. Describe me as busy, absorbed—save me as far as you can. I must write, one day. [13]
I hear that Hume & his wife are in London– [14] I wish that the “world & his wife” [15] wd go to America.
I like to think of you, dear dear, in Casa Guidi & my chair. Try to like it for my sake. If there are spirits there, they go to you in my name & because I love you–
Ever your Ba
Publication: B-IB, pp. 266–270.
Manuscript: Fitzwilliam Museum.
1. Year provided by reference to the return address; 1859 was the only year the Brownings resided at 28 Via del Tritone in December.
2. “I was almost kept waiting.” Attributed to Louis XIV when the royal carriage was nearly late.
3. Letters from Sophia Eckley—presumably to Isa.
4. From Mrs. Eckley. The letter has not surfaced.
5. Les Quarante-cinq (1847–48) by Alexandre Dumas (père) is the last in the historical series known as the “Valois cycle” that begins with La Reine Margot (1845).
6. “All the fineness of the Tuscan tongue.”
8. Elisa Peruzzi (née Eustaphiephe); see letter 4438, note 18.
9. “To surpass his usual finesse.”
10. Articles opposing the proposed Suez Canal had appeared in The Morning Post for 17, 19, 21, and 23 December. “Palmerston’s speech” probably refers to his address to the Agricultural Labourers’ Encouragement Society on 23 December. A report of the speech in Galignani’s Messenger for 24 December included the following quotation: “I am sure that the country is deeply convinced that the best method of preserving peace is to show that you are capable of defending yourselves in the event of being attacked. (Cheers.)” (p. 4).
12. Frances McIntosh (née Watson, 1804?–59), widow of John McIntosh of Paddington, died at Bangor, North Wales, on 4 December 1859. The McIntoshes’ daughter, Charlotte (1829–61), had married Octavius Moulton-Barrett on 19 March 1859.
13. Further references to Sophia Eckley.
14. Having left Russia at the beginning of the previous August, Home, his wife, and their infant son, Gregoire, arrived in London in late November after a brief stay in Paris (see Jean Burton, Heyday of a Wizard, New York, 1944, p. 128).
15. Cf. Jonathan Swift (pseud. Simon Wagstaff), A Complete Collection of Genteel and Ingenious Conversation (1738), Dialogue III, p. 192.
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